


New Growth

by chickenfried



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Lori's bad driving, SHOW WARNINGS, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:14:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfried/pseuds/chickenfried
Summary: After finding Rick dead in the hospital, Shane never makes it back to Lori and Carl.
Relationships: Carl Grimes & Lori Grimes, Daryl Dixon & Carl Grimes, Daryl Dixon & Lori Grimes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	New Growth

**Author's Note:**

> Show warnings include minor to massive plot holes. I have trouble writing from children's perspectives, so I'm hoping this will help me. I also want to explore how these characters would manage without the alpha personalities in their lives

**Flight**

The address leads to a nice white house, one that blends in with the other nice white houses on the street. 817 gleams gold against one of the white columns of the porch. An old tree, as tall as the house, dominates the neat yard; a tire swing hanging down.

Daryl rode Merle’s bike to the neighborhood, dodging speeding cars, traffic snarls, and the occasional running human being. He goes fast enough to avoid noticing the details that would tell him if they were geeks or not.

The neighborhood the house is in is quiet- deserted. Two geeks followed the sound of the engine- shambling in his direction a few blocks down. The lawn of 817 is starting to brown and happy bushes grow out of a red brick level, under the partial shade of the porch. There’s a basil plant in a pot next to the door. Two wicker chairs and a couch surrounding a little table.

Daryl leaves his bag hooked on Merle’s bike, keeps the other one and his crossbow on his shoulder. He pads up the cement steps and knocks quietly on the door frame.

“Lori Grimes?”

He counts to twenty. Knocks a little louder.

“Lori Grimes? Carl?”

One of the geeks is close enough that Daryl can make out the sunflower print on its flowing shirt. The other one is walking on an ankle instead of its foot. A third one has started trailing behind it.

Daryl swears and aims his crossbow.

He’s able to pull out one of the bolts before the newcomer gets too close. He gets all three in an eye, easy to yank them out undamaged. He can see more figures in the distance, and it was probably better to assume they are geeks and not people.

Daryl jogs back down the street and up the steps of 817.

He knocks again.

Before he can open the screen door, the wood and glass one behind it flies open.

“Who the hell are you?”

The woman’s voice is low and furious. Terrified. There’s a handgun pointed at him through the mesh. She has long, thin limbs and hollow cheeks, with dark shadows underneath her eyes. There's a little cross hanging from the chain around her neck.

Daryl resists the urge to spit. “Are you Lori Grimes?”

She takes the safety off. Daryl wonders for a moment if he’s about to get killed by a skinny middle-class housewife.

“Who’s asking?”

Daryl wants to yell. He should be looking for his brother now, fool’s errand that it was, but somehow he ended up obligated to take care of a woman that clearly had no interest in his help.

“Daryl Dixon. Shane Walsh sent me.”

The gun lowers, but then she just stares at him.

“Look, would you let me in? The longer we stand here the more likely the geeks are going to come knocking.”

She seems to debate with herself for a moment.

“Leave the crossbow outside.”

“No.”

There is a tense moment of silence.

“If I see you lift that an inch, I will shoot you.” She steps back, gun trained on him again.

Daryl looks back- the geeks he saw earlier seem to be aimless, a block away. He spits on Lori Grime’s fancy porch and pulls open the screen door. Making sure it closes silently behind him. He closes the other door as well.

“You know sound attracts them?” The woman narrows her eyes and her finger hovers over the safety, but she leaves it off. Daryl scoffs.

There is a sitting room just off the entry way with a big brick fireplace- framed photographs on the mantle, mismatched blue couches, and a bookshelf. Light is pouring in through the gauzy white curtains, windows everywhere, lighting up the scratched hardwood floors. Lori is standing in front of a US flag. Her pale skin contrasts against dark eyes and long dark hair. The gun in her hands is trembling. Daryl does not want to fucking be here.

“I’m gonna put this on the floor, alright?”

Daryl waits for her nod before he sets down his crossbow.

“You are Lori, right? I got a letter.”

Daryl pulls the crinkled envelope from his pocket, the ring obvious from the weight and shape.

“And a bag.”

Lori finally clicks the safety on, lowers the gun and takes them from him with a shaking hand. Her legs give and she sinks down to floor, back against the wall. Her hands go up to her mouth.

“Is. Is he?”

Daryl nods, but her eyes are glued to letter.

“He asked me to get you and Carl to the refugee center in Atlanta.”

Daryl stands awkwardly while she sobs, or hyperventilates? The street is just barely visible through the window. He can hear the creak of light footsteps on the floorboards.

“Mom?”

The boy has to be Carl. He’s small, with pale skin, brown hair, and wide eyes. He doesn’t seem to know how to divide his attention between Daryl and his mother, and seems to decide to focus on the familiar.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

Lori swallows. Breathes deeply for a couple seconds.

“Carl, baby, I’m so sorry.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes, pushes herself up, and walks over to her son to pull him into an embrace.

“Is dad, is _Shane-_ ”

“It’s gonna be okay, baby. We’re gonna be okay.”

One of the geeks has wandered in front of the house, but it seems to be continuing down the street.

"Who are you?"

Daryl had heard the kid approach, but wasn't expecting Carl to have the balls to actually address him. Daryl doesn't turn from where he's looking out the window.

"Daryl Dixon."

"How'd'you know Shane?"

Daryl thinks of myriad answers before he spits one out.

"He did me a favor."

Carl waits long enough to ask his next question that Daryl doesn't expect it.

"How'd he die?"

"Carl, go grab our bags and bring them to the living room."

Lori has pulled herself together. A gold ring has joined the cross at her neck.

"But-" " _Now,_ Carl."

When the kid stomps off, Daryl and Lori continue to eye each other. She breaks the silence.

"I have a car on the street."

Merle's bike is on the street. Taking up space, loud even when it isn't making noise. Merle is like that too, body language screaming most of the time. Merle would kill him if he left it in some random neighborhood. The geek from earlier is out of sight now, and a different one has made its way over. It used to be a man, and it's missing half his insides.

Lori is looking at him like he's a dog that failed to do a trick it's known its whole life. Daryl raises his eyebrows.

"Shane-" her voice cracks on the name and she swallows before glaring. "Shane said that you'd get us to the refugee center."

Daryl had told her that too, but all he just gives an affirmative grunt.

Daryl can see her inhale, exhale. Hear it faintly.

"Okay. I'm going to put our things in the car."

Daryl nods and reaches for his crossbow.

"I'll cover you."

Lori nods too, expression grim. 

"Carl. You stay inside-" "But-" "No matter what, you stay inside!"

She stalks over to her son and Daryl tenses, but she just holds his face in her hands.

"Do you understand, Carl?"

Before Daryl can look away, he sees the kid's wet eyes. Lori grabs one of the suitcases and lifts the keys off of the hook by the door. The handgun is tucked in the big back pocket of her jeans. Shane’s bag of guns and ammo is next to their packed things.

Daryl stays on top of the steps of their lawn as Lori opens the door to a dark blue station wagon. There are three more geeks a little over a block the way he came, and the one missing half its intestines has started walking back toward Lori. After she's opened the car door and lifted the suitcase in, the groaning snaps her out of what must be a forced focus. She lets out a chocked scream.

Daryl puts a bolt through its skull. The geeks in the distance look attentive now. Lori is frozen next to the car.

Daryl swears and looks back. The door is closed in front of the house, but he can see a shadow behind it. He jogs down to the car. 

Lori is clutching the door handle and her face is very pale.

"You need me to get the rest?" 

Daryl isn't sure he'll be able to, before more geeks are on them. She doesn't respond.

She jerks violently when he grabs her arm, and looks at him with wide eyes. Daryl doesn't know what to do, so he repeats his question.

Lori squeezes her eyes shut and runs her hands over her face.

"No, no. I'm fine. I can do this." She's talking to herself not him. Daryl replies anyway.

"No time like the present. We got incoming."

She jogs back up to the house without a response.

``` 

After she puts the last bag in the car, Lori almost grabs Carl next before she stops to think. It was 1:15 when Shane left. 4:53 when someone knocked at their door.

“Go get something to eat, baby.”

Carl has stopped crying. He’s just standing by the window.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Do it anyway.”

Carl’s shoulders lift up and he stalks past her to the kitchen. Lori should pack food. Carl is probably in shock. She should be doing something for him. Since Rick was shot, she had given him space; kept boundaries, routines; made sure he knew she was there. She has no idea what to do for him now, doesn’t have time, and the thought hits her like a physical blow.

She opens the front door and jerks her head back when Daryl meets her eyes from where he’s standing just in front of the porch. He follows her non-verbal directions without expression or word. God, she wishes Shane were here instead of this strange replacement. Almost as much as she had wished the past month that she could take back all those hateful words she spat at her husband.

_Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all._

“Do you know how to get to the refugee center?”

Blue eyes, lighter than Carl’s, narrow at her at her and he lifts a shoulder in a shrug. The arms bared by his cutoff shirt are cut with muscle. He’s dirty- underneath the splatters of what is probably blood, his skin has a fine layer of dirt and his hair is greasy. Lori exhales.

“Yes or no?”

His hand raises in an aborted gesture.

“More or less. I could get to the city from here.”

The emergency broadcast had been going for weeks. Lori could probably recite it backwards.

Daryl continues, unprompted for once, “The roads are a little hectic.”

Hectic?

“Do you think we’ll be able to get through?”

“Don’t know.”

Lori exhales. Doesn't say 'that's not good enough'.

“Okay. Go get cleaned up, and we’ll have dinner before we leave. Bathrooms through there.”

He looks at her like she’s speaking in Chinese before he responds.

“Yes ma’am.”

Some of the tension in Lori’s shoulders relaxes.

“Do you need a change of clothes?” He looks like he’s about her husband’s size, and Rick wouldn’t- Rick is dead.

“Nah.”

Carl is staring blankly, refrigerator open. Lori used to give Rick so much grief for that- letting all the cold air out, wasting electricity. Lori runs a hand over Carl’s hair.

“Go sit down at the table, baby.”

There’s half of an enchilada casserole that Cathy from down the street had brought them half a week ago. It was the last of the 'your husband is in a coma, my condolences' edible goods that neighbors and friends and coworkers had brought by. Cathy and Dave had offered to take her and Carl with them to Atlanta, but Lori had been waiting to hear back from the hospital about Rick’s move. That call had never come.

While the casserole heats in the microwave, Lori calls her mother one last time. She can hear water running in the bathroom, pipes loud through the entire house. She gets her voice mail again. It feels different, not knowing what had happened to her, after seeing the infected in person. Seeing Daryl put arrows through them.

There’s a picture tacked up on the fridge from a few years ago. Carl is holding a massive fish in front of Rick and Shane; Shane’s arm over Rick’s shoulder, beaming grins on Shane and Carl’s faces. A faint one on Rick’s, his deep blue eyes sparkling the same way that had caught her attention over a decade ago. They’d gone on the trip a couple months after Rick’s mom had passed, and Lori remembers deciding then that she’d do what it took to be more patient, more loving and understanding. The microwave beeps, loud against the quiet of the house.

_Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all._

Carl isn’t at the table and Lori has a moment of pure panic before she sees him standing by the front door, looking through the curtain.

Lori doesn’t hear Daryl walk through the house, just sees him standing in the door way when she leads Carl to the table with a hand on his shoulder. His hair and shirt are damp, like he tried to rinse out the various stains on it, and he smells like their lavender hand soap.

Carl washes his hands and Lori brings the casserole and three plates to the table. Daryl watches them like they are doing some foreign outdated ritual. With what is happening outside, maybe it is now. He sits down at the empty place setting a couple beats after they do, unsure, like a shy kid on their first day of school. Lori gets the feeling that he might rather be anywhere than in their house right now- even alone outside with a hundred of the infected.

His hand is large and calloused in hers, in contrast to Carl’s which are the same size as her own. Despite setting the table, sitting around it, like everything is normal, Lori can’t bring herself to say a prayer. She just closes her eyes for a moment, and squeezes both of the hands in hers before letting go and grabbing her fork.

Carl moves the food around on his plate, watching Daryl out of the corner of his eye. Lori knows she’s not much better. Daryl eats like he’s never used a fork before, stabbing at the enchilada until half of it falls off and eating it like he’s being timed. It reminds Lori of the way Shane’s dog used to eat things it would find on the side of the road- gobbling them up before Shane could pull her away. Lori feels awful about the comparison the second it pops in her head. She forces herself to eat a few bites even though the richness of the cheese and sauce turn her stomach.

The roads are mostly clear when they drive through town, Lori white knuckled in the driver’s seat. They pass infected on the road, and she has to swerve around a few. There are a few pile ups, passengers having abandoned the vehicles, but nowhere that Lori can’t get around. Daryl is tense, but silent in the passenger’s seat. He doesn’t hold on to the seat or hand rail, doesn’t flinch when she slams on the breaks or swerves.

It feels almost strange when Lori sees her first moving car, and then they hit the traffic on the highway. It’s like rush hour in Atlanta, three counties out. The sun is sinking toward the horizon, blinding Lori whenever she looks wrong at the rearview mirror.

“I don’t like this.”

It’s the first input Daryl has offered of his own volition and it isn’t until after he says it that Lori realizes just how much she had been wanting him to take charge. Tell her what to do. How much she wishes they were in each other’s seats.

“Stuck in a line like this. We’re like part of an all you can eat buffet.” Lori feels the grease heavy in her stomach.

“What’s your plan, then?”

He chews a hangnail at his thumb. “We ain’t getting to the center through this. Gotta get off the road, maybe head back later, a different route.”

He finally does grab the seat when Lori jerks the wheel all the way to the left and drives over the grassy divot that separates Northbound from Southbound.

“Hey!” The box filled with food had slid across the seat to knock Carl into the door.

“Sorry, honey.” Lori winces, and stops, car perpendicular to the road. Daryl looks like a startled cat.

“Do you think we should go back to the house?”

“Nah, we should go somewhere there’re less people.”

He doesn’t elaborate, just sits there, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Like he’s waiting for her to proclaim what they’ll do next, or maybe just keep driving somewhere without a word.

When Carl was seven, he got thrown off a horse and broke his arm. Lori had been hysterical, but Rick had stayed calm. Got ice from the people running the ranch and drove them to the hospital. Talked the nurse into getting him seen right away with his low, firm voice. Him taking care of things had given Lori room to panic, to get angry.

There’s no room for that now. Hasn't been room for since Shane told her her husband was shot.

“Do you have any places in mind?”

It takes him a long moment to respond.

“Do you know Lanoia campground?” It’s where the picture in Lori’s pocket is from, stuck in with Shane’s letter. The one she’d pulled off the fridge.

“Yes.”

“There’s a dirt road that goes out a few miles from there for the rangers. We could camp out up there.”

Lori looks at her tank. It’s at half. She decides not to ask.

“We need to stop and get gas on the way.”

Daryl doesn’t argue, and Lori isn’t quite sure why she expected him to. The gas station, miraculously, ends up being eerily clear of signs of human life. The normalcy of it hurts.

It hurts worse when she looks at the empty shop. Lori used to think about stealing whenever she was in a store like that. When her mom was at the check out and candy bars and jerky and chips filled her entire sight line. She never did. Felt guilty every time she felt hungry, felt covetous of those lines of food.

From their kitchen Lori had grabbed a half empty box of cereal, two apples, and a mostly gone jar of peanut butter. Shane had told them not to leave the house and Lori had missed her usual shopping day.

Lori and Carl grab all the food that they can carry in their hands. Carl’s eyes were huge when she told him to, and he has the same look Rick would get when he told a bad joke- like he’s getting away with something.

It’s not stealing. It’s not looting. She’s not contributing to the break down of society. She left two twenties on the counter.

There are a couple cars at the campground, a few tents set up. A man and a woman, maybe ten years older than her, stare at them as they drive past. Lori focuses on the dirt road ahead of her, hyper aware that her car was not built for this.

By the time they get to the end of the road, a turnout imprinted with huge tire tracks, the sun is giving its last golden rays through the trees, Carl does most of the work of setting up the tent, telling Lori what to hold where.

“Think we’re clear this far out?”

At first Lori thinks the question is rhetorical or he’s just talking out loud, but Daryl is frowning at her. Carl is eating- thank God- a bag of chips on the tarp he laid out in front of the tent.

How the hell should she know? And Lori is grateful, she doesn’t want to be alone with Carl, but Daryl is not the person she wants to be with. He’s not Shane or Rick who would be telling her what to do instead of looking to her for instructions.

What would Rick do, calm in the face of chaos?

“We should take watches. Do you want the first or second one?”

“Second.”

Lori looks at her watch. 7:24.

Carl gives her a look when she makes him brush his teeth and wash his face, armpits and privates with a wipe, but doesn’t give her any lip. When she’s finished setting up their sleeping bags, Carl lies down and stares up at the top of the tent. Lori leans over and kisses the top of his head.

“Thank God you are with me tonight. Please Lord, protect us and give us strength. Keep us and everyone else in your mercy. Amen.”

Carl’s eyes are closed, and Lori can’t bring herself to tell him to say his prayers.

“I love you, Carl.”

Lori lifts her tired limbs up, and when she’s at the flap to the tent she hears Carl responds.

“Love you too, Mom.”

Her chest is full, but Daryl is standing outside the tent, waning gibbous casting deep shadows. He holds out the bag he’d given her at the house and a flashlight.

There are two rifles and a hand gun inside, with five boxes of ammo.

Lori has shot a gun three times in her life, and a rifle only once. She takes it and looks it over, remembering.

“I’ve never seen one run, they’re always pretty slow.” Daryl says, unprompted. “It’s gotta be in the head, nothing else stops them, so wake me up or make sure you’ve got a good shot.”

Lori sees him move toward a bedroll laid out next to the tent.

“You should sleep in the tent.”

Daryl stops.

“I’d feel better if there was someone in there with Carl.”

Daryl looks at her like she’s an alien again, but shrugs his shoulder and brings his things in to the tent. She can hear a low murmur of conversation, and it lasts longer than she would have expected despite the long pauses. She can do this. She has to do this.

The woods are quiet and Lori hears a breeze ruffle the leaves before it brushes her skin, lifts her hair. She pulls the letter out of her pocket, more crinkled now than it was before. It's written in messy print, unsigned.

> Lori,
> 
> Rick is dead. The hospital was overrun. Over the past month you have shown so much incredible strength. I know you are going to make it. You have to. You and Carl are the best thing that happened to Rick. And me. I love you both. I’m sorry I won’t be there with you, but I know you can do it on your own.
> 
> Stick with Daryl Dixon for as long as you can. I don’t know much about his character, but he is capable.

In King’s County, the Jones family stops in an empty neighborhood, Jenny delirious with fever.

Farther down the highway, Ed Peletier thinks about that fishing spot at the quarry.

Napalm rains down on Atlanta.

Rick Grimes’ heart beats steadily on.

```

One of Carl’s earliest memories is of his Grandpa’s funeral. Carl only ever had one Grandpa. Sure, when they did family trees he wrote down two names above both of his parents, but in his head there was Grandpa, Gram, and Gramma. It had been the first time that he wore a button -own shirt. Carl remembers the shirt vividly- how it had been warm and stiff from the iron, the shiny black buttons.

He can’t remember how he felt, if he felt anything, or what he did to bring it on, but Mom had knelt down and brushed his hair back and said,

“Dad is going through something really difficult, so we need to be good for him, alright? We need to be good for him.”

After they saw Dad and the hospital and Mom told him they didn’t know when he would wake up, and they held each other, Shane took him to a burger place. Carl had picked at his fries, no appetite for the burger. Shane had sat across from him and asked to talk man to man. He said that they needed to be strong for Lori, that Shane needed Carl’s help to take care of Mom, because Mom was going to be busy taking care of Dad.

Now, Dad was dead and Shane was dead. It doesn’t feel real. Mom is asleep across the tent and Carl feels frozen in his sleeping bag, the same feeling he’d get when he woke up in the dark and Carl _knew_ something would grab him if he moved off his bed. The sun is bright through the material of the tent, and there are muffled crackling noises coming from outside. 

For a wild moment Carl thinks it's his Dad, but that's stupid. Dad got shot, and then he was in a coma. Now he's dead. Carl's fists clench.

It could be Daryl, but right now Daryl feels like a figment of his imagination. Like something Carl dreamed of- shooting crazy people with arrows like in the video games Mom wouldn’t hear of him playing. Mom driving like a maniac. Mom telling him to grab food off the shelves in the gas station. It had to have been a strange dream.

But if everything did happen, then Carl needs to do something. There is the sound of something wet tearing outside, a quiet thud. Carl can’t stay frozen. He needs to protect his mom.

Carl’s jeans are folded next to his mat. He slips his pocket knife off of where he clipped it and flicks it open. Every crinkle of his feet against the canvas sounds amplified. Carl pulls down the zipper in one quick yank.

Daryl is crouched over a little fire. There are three little creatures, skinned and skewered, over the fire. Carl feels a moment of intense revulsion looking at the tiny legs. Cindy Thompson had stopped eating meat in 2nd grade because she realized they were eating animals. She convinced Carl to go a week without it, but when Dad kept tempting him, he’d caved. Dad had said he shouldn’t feel bad, that it was how nature worked.

His stomach grumbles and Daryl snorts a little.

“It’ll be done in a couple of minutes.”

Carl doesn’t feel uncomfortable around adults like some of his classmates do, and Daryl is too different to the people he’s met to waste time being nervous around him. He looks like a bad guy from tv, dirty and muscled with angry eyes.

“What are they?”

“Squirrel.”

Everyone he knows laughs about being rednecks, and about people eating squirrels, but Daryl _is_ a redneck. He had a motorcycle and a crossbow. He’d told Carl that he and Shane met because Shane had arrested his brother. When Carl asked him he said he’s never been arrested though.

Carl still feels a little bad for the squirrel, but it actually feels kind of badass to eat meat off of a skewer with his hands. He’s hungry enough to finish one off, even though it’s bland and a little burnt.

“Are we going to Atlanta today?”

Carl would rather stay here, where he was able to set up the tent and where there haven’t been any people- including sick people. Mom had tried to keep him away from the news, but Carl had seen Ms. Ekhart on the street the day before, saw Daryl shoot her through the eye. Ms. Ekhart had been missing half her face, red muscle instead of skin. The squirrel settles badly in his stomach.

Daryl rolls his neck.

“Dunno, that’s up to your mom.”

Carl doesn’t know how long he sits on the tarp across from Daryl before he hears his Mom moving around in the tent. The sun is filtering through the trees above them. She almost bowls him over when she races out.

“Carl,” she more breathes his name than speaks it and sits down next to him. Pulls him into a hug. Carl wraps his arms around her, something in him loosening.

"Wake me up next time, okay?"

Carl’s thirst hits him by surprise. When he squirms out of Mom’s arms, mom notices Daryl and his culinary efforts.

“Are those squirrels?”

She sounds nauseated.

“Carl, your _hands._ ”

Carl looks down and realizes that his hands are covered in grease. He can see greasy fingerprints on Mom’s shirt. But Mom just huffs out a laugh and runs a hand through his hair.

“I’ll get you a wipe.”

Mom hands Daryl one too. Daryl puts it in his pocket and Carl feels like he’s watching a strange comedy routine. It’s _weird_ looking Mom and Daryl together. Mom and Daryl look like they feel weird too.

Mom eats dry cereal while Daryl eats the last squirrel. A live squirrel chitters in a tree nearby, oblivious or uncaring of the fate of its brethren. Mom clears her throat.

“Do you think the road to Atlanta is clear now?”

Daryl shrugs. “Dunno. Might as well check it out.”

Mom looks like how Carl feels. Like they don’t really want to check it out at all, but Mom nods anyway.

“Alright. Carl, let’s pack up.”

Carl remembers the last camping trip he took- with Dad and Shane. Shane had had him set up the tent by himself, told him that he had more sense than his old man. Dad had made fun of Shane for being a boy scout and Shane had made fun of Dad for being a city slicker- the same jokes they always used with each other.

He has to keep reminding himself that they’re dead. That he won’t see them again, but it still doesn’t feel real.

It's hot in the car and it feels like the ride to Atlanta passes in the blink of an eye. Like they’re pulling onto the cement off the dirt road and then Daryl is saying,

“Stop the car.”

And then Carl _sees_ what is around them. On their side of the road are a few crashed cars here and there, but on the other side is a huge pileup. A line of cars behind it trailing farther than the horizon. There is a woman being _eaten_ by a man, his hands digging into her stomach, a bloody mess.

“Turn around!”

But Mom is just staring. Something thuds against the car right next to him. Carl scrambles to the side, yanking against the seatbelt. There is a person, a monster, clawing at the window, at the door handle- Carl slams down the lock.

“ _Mom!_ ”

The car spins around in reverse, Carl feels the tires go over the thing by his window, and slams into the truck behind them before shooting forward. Carl’s head jerks forward and back. They drive at a breakneck pace until they drive miles down an empty stretch of road. The car slows gradually before Mom pulls onto the side.

Carl tries to relax his tense muscles. His neck aches.

“Oh God, oh Jesus.”

The door slams. Daryl is pacing in the road.

“ _Carl_. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Mom unbuckles her seatbelt and turns around to look at him. Her eyes are red rimmed and wide, face pale. She looks the way she did the day she told him they were going to see Dad in the hospital. Carl can’t feel anything but the crick in his neck.

“I’m fine Mom.”

Her face crumples and she rubs her hands over her face. Breathes shakily and then opens the door. Carl doesn’t know how long it takes them to get back in the car.

The immediacy of the panic- seeing that person getting eaten, the monster a foot away from him separated only be a car door- has faded into a tense miasma of dread and uncertainty. The car is silent and thick with feeling. Carl doesn’t check out the way he had been earlier- he’s aware of the road, of the occasional stopped car they pass.

There is a group of cars just off the road, surrounding a red gas station. Mom slows the car. There are _people_ milling around instead of walking corpses. Mom looks relieved, but Daryl hasn’t lost his grim expression.

Mom parks a few feet behind a mini-van. A blonde woman is sitting in the back with the side door open, her daughter in her lap. Mom walks over to talk with her and Carl hangs back with Daryl, who is looking around with narrow eyes.

There are a couple tents set up amidst the cars and Carl can see a sign hanging on one of the pumps that reads, “NO GAS.” There’s a boy around his age playing with a soccer ball to the side.

A group that has formed a couple yards away is talking loudly.

“This is a good place to wait for the national guard to pull through.”

“Did you guys not see them drop fucking napalm on Atlanta?”

“What?”

“Not like we can go anywhere without gas anyway.”

It takes a minute for Carl to realize that Mom and Daryl are having their own quiet argument.

“First you want to leave us in the middle of nowhere, and now that we’ve found a group you agreed to help us find, you want to take us with you?”

Carl turns to see Mom, arms crossed, practically hissing at Daryl.

“Whatever. I don’t give a shit what you do.” Daryl turns and starts stalking off toward the center of the cars.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” Daryl hesitates and Mom takes a second before she continues. “You got us here, and I owe you our lives for that. I’ll give you a ride back to your bike.”

Daryl whirls back around and crowds Mom back.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” his voice is hissed and furious. Carl feels frozen, like he’s watching a play, not his life. “Do you understand how stupid that is? You are going to get yourself and your kid killed.”

Mom inhales sharply and then chokes on a sob.

“I don’t- I don’t know what to do, Daryl. I don’t know what to do.”

Carl’s chest hurts. Daryl just stands there, anger turned to awkward tension, like Mom breaking down wasn’t a reaction he could have possibly anticipated. 

Carl puts his hand on her back and she flinches for a second, before wrapping her arms around him. Carl hugs her back. He needs her to be okay.

“It’s going to be okay Mom.”

She sobs.

“Of course baby, you’re right.” 

It takes her a few minutes to calm down, and then she kisses the top of his head.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

Twenty minutes later, they are back on the road.

``` 

```

Daryl only meets Shane twice before his entire life is derailed.

The first time Daryl sees him is at the King County Sheriff’s building. King County is the same as countless others that surround Atlanta, caught between country, redneck, and city. Three people complain to the woman at the front desk before Daryl has a chance, trying not to blow up in frustration.

Merle had called him to say he got taken in on bullshit charges, but Daryl hadn’t been able to get any actual information out of him, and the he wasn’t able to get a hold of a person at the county jail or the sheriff’s office.

“You here for Merle Dixon?”

The cop is about Merle’s size, with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing one of the dumbass uniforms they shove law enforcement into here. He looks tired, worn.

Daryl forces his agitation down. He may not enjoy dealing with pigs, but he knows how to, especially when they aren’t going out of their way to be assholes.

“Yessir. He’s my brother.”

The cop runs a hand over his face.

“I’m deputy Shane Walsh. I’m the one who arrested him.”

When Daryl doesn’t react to his statement except to nod, Walsh continues.

“He was creating a public disturbance and was in possession of schedule 1 drugs.”

Daryl knows what the man is saying- Merle is going to jail.

“Things are pretty crazy right now, so I don’t know how long it will take for him to get a hearing, but the case is cut and dry.”

Daryl cuts in, not interested in hearing the minutiae. “Is he going to be held in the county jail?”

Walsh runs a hand over the back of his neck.

“I know the information line is backed up right now, but I’m not involved in that part of the process. Take my card and if you can’t get a hold of anybody I’ll help you find out.”

The second time Daryl sees him, he’s in the same place, looking like he’d gone beyond tired into crazy. The entire town was bugging the fuck out. The epidemic had been underestimated, not overestimated. When Daryl hadn’t heard from his brother in 24 hours he had called Walsh’s number and got an answering machine. He had decided to go back to the Sheriff’s department instead of guessing where Merle had ended up.

The Sheriff’s office was deserted, except for Walsh, who is pale and sweating, sitting at the front desk.

“Dixon.”

Daryl relaxes a fraction when he speaks.

“I’ll help you get your brother out if you promise to help me after.”

“Help you with what?”

“Lori and Carl Grimes.” He scribbles something down on a piece of paper and hands it to Daryl.

It’s lopsided, something heavy inside with an address written in a shaky hand on the front. “They’re street is just off Main, east of here. Get them to an evacuation center.”

Daryl feels lost.

“Why me?”

Shane runs a shaking hand over his face.

“I can’t. I’m bit.”

Daryl backs up a step. Wonders for a second why he’s not in a hospital before he realizes that hospitals must be the fucking epicenters for the spread of this.

“You don’t have somebody else you could ask?”

“You see a whole lot of people around?”

Daryl has no idea what is going on or what the fuck else he’d do, so he agrees.

Daryl leaves the jail without Shane or Merle, with a letter in his pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> I have plans to continue this story, but am very bad at following through, so I've decided to post it in chunks that end in a satisfying way.
> 
> Please let me know what you think :)


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